Entrepreneur Intel

EI - Cameron Herold
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Intro: [00:00:00] This is the unfiltered truth about entrepreneurship. Raw. No VS. No sugarcoating. Welcome to Entrepreneur Intel. I'm your host, Wes Matthews. Each episode, we'll learn from experienced founders and uncover the top 5 percent learnings that led to their success in all things personal, family, and business.

This show is sponsored by Stealth Consulting, delivering clear marketing strategies, ROI, and no surprises.

Wes: I am really excited for today's guest. Um, I actually had a lot of information to prepare, but I really just want to go off of your LinkedIn because I think you did a really good job of introducing yourself. So I want to take a snippet out of that and just introduce our guests today. So he was an entrepreneur from day one at age 21.

He had 14 employees by 35. He helped build his first 200 million companies by the age of 42. He engineered 1 800 GOT JUNKS. Spectacular growth from 2 million [00:01:00] to 106 million in revenue and 31, 100 employees. And he did that in just six years. Uh, he's landed over 52 media, 5, 200 media placements in the same six years, including coverage on Oprah.

Um, he is the publisher of Forbes magazine. Rich Cagarland, um, stated Cameron Harrell is the best speaker I've ever heard. He hits grand slams. Top rated, top rated international speaker, five books. One is globally recognized. Uh, I want to welcome Cameron Harrell. Thanks for so much for coming on.

Cameron: Hey Wes. Thanks so much. Appreciate it. It's funny if you're, if you're reading that bio off LinkedIn, I got to go back and update it. I've now written six books. Um, and I've never, I never wanted to be a writer or an author either. So it's weird that I've now got six books written, but for anybody, for a person who's listening right now, Wes and I have a very similar background.

Um, I would never be here today without EO, which is the Entrepreneur's Organization. [00:02:00] I was an EO member. From 1995 to 2000 with my first two EO qualifying companies. One was a collision repair chain that went on to become what's called Gerber Auto Collision in the US. It was called Boyd Auto Body in Canada.

It's now a 2 billion company. The second was a private currency business that we built and sold. And it was an EO member that I was a partner with. And then I left that company when we sold to a public company and Brian, who was in my forum in EO hired me as his second in command to come in and scale and build out 1 800 GOT JUNK.

So it was entirely because of EO that I am where I am. It was entirely because of EO that I got to, um, to really understand the power of vulnerability and being in community and sharing with each other. And then you and I have both been to, uh, EMP's Endicott House for the Entrepreneurial Masters Program.

I'm actually hosting my second event there. I've been there 19 times, but this September will be my 20th time on the property. I'm hosting a COO Alliance event at Endicott house. I'm pretty excited to bring a group of COOs in because [00:03:00] it's always been the crazy entrepreneurs like us that have been there,

Wes: No, it's, it's, it's amazing to think back. Like I've been an EO for over a decade. Like you mentioned, that's how we met. It completely changed my life. I barely refer anything in my life. I'll tell anybody and everybody about EO. And that's when I actually learned about EOS, which was kind of confusing at the time, because people are like, EO, EOS, like what's going on?

But I'll never forget. I read, somebody told me to read traction. I was at an EO event and EOS implementer got up very early on and started talking. And it was interesting enough. And I grabbed that book traction and I started to learn about a visionary and I'm like, I'm not like clinically crazy, like I'm, I'm clearly a visionary.

And that's when I started to learn about the second in command, the COO, the integrator. When did you learn about, like, you know, you said you were a visionary, an entrepreneur from a very early age, but when did you realize like, man, I'm a COO. Like when did that start to resonate with you?

Cameron: Yeah. So it's interesting. And you kind of touched on it before we went live that I'm a little bit [00:04:00] different from most COOs in that I'm very entrepreneurial. So I was groomed as an entrepreneur. My father was an entrepreneur. My brother, my sister, and myself have all run our own companies for between 20 and 25 years.

My sister is also now a longtime EO member and a graduate of the EMP program. Both sets of grandparents were entrepreneurs. So I grew up in this very entrepreneurial organizations, entrepreneurial families. When I was 20, I was awarded a franchise of a company called College Pro Painters and College Pro went on to become the largest house painting company in the world.

I ended up opening the West Coast of the U. S. for them. I hired Kimball Musk to work for me as a franchisee and his cousin, Peter Reeve, who built SolarCity. And in College Pro Painters, I was given the formula for growing and scaling entrepreneurial sized companies. Kind of like the EOS, but I was indoctrinated in these, these systems back in the mid eighties.

And because of College Pro Painters, I then went on to work at the head office and started training franchisees on following this operating manual, this system. And [00:05:00] again, it was a very kind of early stage system of what EOS is kind of like today. So because I learned all of these systems to scale entrepreneurial companies, and I coached 120 entrepreneurs by the time I was 28 using these College Pro systems, it became a part of me.

So my entrepreneurial DNA was counterbalanced with very simple entrepreneurial systems that could provide this, this kind of predictable scale. So what happened was a family friend asked me if I would come on and help him build a franchise organization, which became Gerber Auto Collision and Boyd Auto Body.

I came in when they had seven locations. Four years later, we had 65 and we took the company public and I was responsible for Finding the other 58 locations, acquiring some of the locations, teaching them how to use an operating system and kind of building out this franchise brand. So I got some good practice to do it again.

And then I built a private currency company as the second in command to a founder. And then Brian, my best friend, asked me to be his second in command to scale 1 800 GOD [00:06:00] JUNK. So it was three entrepreneurial companies in a row after College Pro Painters, which was this very entrepreneurial, but kind of very almost OCD systems that you could, you could document each system on a post it note.

They were kept so simple. So it was a combination of me working in these entrepreneurial organizations over a period of 10, 12 years. Plus the skills that I learned at college pro that I think gave me the base to be that very entrepreneurial COO. So I think I'm a very different style of, uh, of operator.

And in fact, I would be a horrible second in command for 85 percent of the members of the COO alliance. Because I don't match the behavioral traits of their CEO. I don't match the size of their organization, or I may be too entrepreneurial for the kind of business that they're in. I was the perfect match for Brian at the time.

It's a long answer, but it's detailed.

Wes: No, it's great. I mean, and, and that's what I see as you're talking. I, I, I see that. My experience with COOs, whether they're full [00:07:00] time or fractional, it's like finding the right visionary to work with and executing their plan. But I feel your vision, and correct me if I'm wrong, is you can kind of take that vision, but then make it your own and kind of get that visionary out of the way and kind of propel that business forward, which, which some visionaries are probably threatened by that because they're the visionary and, you know, they want to come up with all the ideas.

Yeah,

Cameron: been really interesting for me is that as long as I lock and load with the vision of the entrepreneur, right, where are we taking the organization? What are the core values? And then what parts of the business do you love to run that you're amazing at? Let me take everything else.

And if I take all the stuff that they don't love, that they're not great at or the areas that I'm really amazing at, we can really accelerate the growth. And then they're usually trusting me to do that because I've done it so many times before and I have predictability and I'm quite good and vulnerable at saying, you know what, I suck at this.

I'm not going to say yes to those areas. What's really unique about the COO or that second integrator role is we have to be the yin and [00:08:00] yang to the CEO. So if you're the head of marketing, you can probably be the head of marketing for most companies your size. If you're the head of HR, you could be the head of HR for most companies your size.

Head of IT, head of finance, you know, the head of people, whatever. You could pretty much do that for all companies, no matter industry. The COO is so different because we have to match the CEO, match the core values of the organization, and we have to be good at all the stuff the entrepreneur is not. So in some cases, like I was a very outward facing COO, biz dev, sales, marketing, PR, operations, culture, doing speaking events on behalf of the company.

In other cases, the COO is only inward facing because the CEO is very outward facing, right? So I had a CEO who liked to talk to me. Focus on finance. He liked to focus on it. He liked to focus on culture and I was kind of really good at that outward facing. Plus I'd done it before. So it's a really strange role.

And I think that garnered the trust of these CEOs that I've been with now that I'm building out [00:09:00] the COO Alliance because I've worked with so many CEOs. I understand their mindset. I understand that one of our roles is to be the brakes to the entrepreneurs gas, but not the parking brake, right? Or we're going to be the leash to the dragon, but not choke you.

So we're, we're there to save you from yourself, to make you look good, to help remove all the stuff that drains you of energy. And we're there to say not now versus no, and we're there to do it delicately. So as long as we work behind the scenes, building that strong relationship and trust with the entrepreneur, I think that's what they value most.

Wes: definitely to me. I, I, I a hundred percent agree. It's like a fine art. Like I, I really, I'm fascinated with COOs. How, if I look out in the world, I'm a visionary entrepreneur and I see visionaries everywhere for every thousand visionaries. There's probably one good COO. Maybe my numbers are off, but how, how do you as a visionary or an entrepreneur find that right?

Yin Yang, right? [00:10:00] I feel like COOs are such a rare commodity. Now,

Cameron: is very common for CEOs to say. Right? That there's only one out of a thousand good CMOs. Let me give you a different analogy. It's almost like a group of women getting together and saying there's only one good man for every thousand. That's just not true. What we have to find is the good man for the good woman, right?

You have to find a wife that matches you, matches your vision, matches your family culture, likes to do the stuff around the home that you don't like to do, you know, and you kind of gel and you work together. But your wife would probably be a horrible wife for me. And my wife would probably be a horrible wife for you.

My wife matches my skills and my behavioral traits and my desires and my dreams. So. There's lots of good wives. There's lots of good husbands. We have to find the right match for them. Where most CEOs give up is they get frustrated with their COO and they're like, I need a divorce. I need a new COO. No, you need to learn how to talk together.

You need to learn how to [00:11:00] communicate with each other. So I joke a lot about the CEO COO relationship is almost identical. To the book, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, right? You and I are not hairy versions of women. You're a guy. I'm a guy. We do guy things. We think guy ways, and we're different from the women in our lives who see and approach things very differently.

So what we have to learn is how do they speak? How do we communicate better? How do we listen more? How do we not solve their problems? How do we show that we love them and care? We have to learn how to communicate together. And I think if more entrepreneurs would learn how to communicate better with their COO, how to build trust with them, how to save time with each other, how each other operates, if they would spend time on that kind of communication system, they'd realize they have a great COO.

They don't need to keep replacing them all the time.

Wes: what do you recommend to keep that relationship healthy or even to start? Is that

Cameron: Marriage

Wes: I think EOS is like, yeah, one, you know, uh, once a week, [00:12:00] same page meeting or like, what's a good tempo or cadence for you to kind of,

Cameron: Let's, let's stick with the marriage. You know, you and your wife have got five kids. Now you probably have date night. You probably have time where you get away from the children. You probably have time where you get away for the weekend or you go out for a dinner. You probably have time to fight and argue, but not in front of the children, right?

So the CEO and CO need time to argue and debate, but not in front of the rest of the leadership team, not in front of the board, not in front of the employees, but they certainly need a time and a space to fight and argue and debate for the good of the culture and the core values. They need time to hang out together.

Brian and I would go for runs on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. We'd hang out at my tennis club or his tennis club on Fridays and do work on our laptops. We'd go drinking and go for dinners together. We hung out with each other's families. Away from business and not with any of the other leadership team members around.

We were friends. Brian was my best man at my wedding three months before I started to work for him. So we already had this implied trust. So I think if you can work on the trust, you work on the communication, you work on [00:13:00] liking each other, you work on staying on the same page. That's really helpful. Even marriage counseling is helpful, right?

Husbands and wife. I'm sure you've worked with a marriage counselor at some point or a marriage coach as my wife and I have. That's really helpful because a marriage coach has probably seen every marriage issue a thousand times where we're going through it for the first or second. They're like, God, I dealt with that six times yesterday, right?

So they kind of laugh at our problems and they help us through them. CEOs and I have, I have a number of CEOs and COOs working with my actual marriage counselor. Her name is Dr. Patty Ann. She's a marriage counselor for Wall Street Power Executives. She's been my wife and I's marriage coach since the day we got married.

We're doing another call with her in two weeks. She works with a bunch of CEOs and COOs on our behalf. because she's really good at kind of moving them through their issues. So you need that as a space. And then lastly, it's about understanding how the other person communicates. So I'll give an example.

Entrepreneurs stay at the 30, 000 foot level. We hyperlink from idea to idea. We, [00:14:00] if I said to you, Hey, we got to get the right people on the bus, wrong people off the bus, everybody in the right seat. You're like, yeah, that's a great discussion on recruiting. It's like, no, it's a mantra. We didn't even talk about recruiting.

The COO wants to talk about that one sole issue for eight hours. Okay. So we have to remember that they want to do more fact finding. They want to do more systems. They want to talk to more people. They want to be more thinking through stuff. And if we don't give them the time to think, we think they're arguing with us.

So if we go to the COO and say, Hey, I have a good idea. And the COO starts asking us questions. They're not arguing. They're trying to catch up with us. They're trying to understand our idea. We've rolled the idea around in our head for two weeks or two hours and we expect them to get it in 12 seconds.

Cause we're not communicating the same way. So there's all this, that stuff around trust, communication, having fun. And then I guess the last, last point is the COO's job is to make the CEO look good, like to shine the spotlight, make the CEO iconic. The CEO's job internally is to make the COO [00:15:00] look good because they're always rolling out the bad decisions.

They're always being the tough guy. So it's like mom making dad look good. Dad making mom look good. My mom would be like, wait till your dad gets home. My dad would come home, give me the spanking. My mom would come back in 10 minutes later, go, daddy still loves you. He just has to do that. They covered for each other, right?

Wes: Yeah. What, what, what a great analogy. And I think from like an EO perspective. I always just see a lot of visionary. So I'm assuming that talk a little bit about the COO Alliance. I mean, is that because I don't see any resources out there for COOs. It's always targeted towards the visionary, the entrepreneur or whatever.

Like, is that, is that where that idea came from?

Cameron: Yeah. So I've, I've been in a number of different mastermind communities. I was an EO member for five years. I was in the genius network for eight years. I was in a strategic coach for eight years. I've worked with YPO chapters in 10 countries. I've gone to five baby bathwater events. Uh, five mastermind talks events.

Like I've really been immersed in masterminds for entrepreneurs. And I was sitting at this genius network [00:16:00] event one day with all these entrepreneurs from all over the world. And I looked around, I'm like, There's places for lawyers. There's places for dentists. There's places for doctors and for architects.

God, there's even associations for like neurologists and dentists, like chiropractors. Why isn't there a place for the COO? So I talked to a bunch of my CEO clients, Bob Glazier from Acceleration Partners, and a bunch of EO members, Tucker Max, and they all said, you know, we'll put our second in command into a group if you can start a group.

So we just started a group for the COO. We said, no entrepreneurs are allowed. You can't come, but your second in command can join. And it's very similar to you and I should not go to a baby shower. We shouldn't go to a bachelorette party as much as we might have some girlfriends that want to invite us.

Like we don't fit. Well, COOs don't fit in EO and CEOs from EO don't fit in the CO alliance. Like you'd be bored to tears at a CO alliance event, even at Endicott house where you've been, it's not your tribe. [00:17:00] So I wanted to start a place where I'm not teaching them. I'm merely facilitating discussions, facilitating breakouts.

having members presenting to each other, members do hot seats to help unstick each other, bring in some great guest speakers. I've got Sam Horn and Greg Crabtree and Steven Sissler, all who have presented to EO, coming presenting to our group. But because it's just them with them, that's where they're able to grow.

And one of the unique things of our COO alliance members, they all think their entrepreneur is a little bit crazy and they want them to stay there. They don't want to fix you. Like our wives think that we're a little different. They don't want to fix us. They just want to communicate better with us, right?

We all think our wives are a little bit crazy. We don't want to fix them. We just want to learn how to stay bonded and stay connected with them. That's what's really been a, probably the most unique thing for me to realize is we all think our CEO is crazy, but we love them and we want to continue to allow them to be that crazy, vibrant, Kind of beacon of light.

And then we want to help make their dreams come [00:18:00] true.

Wes: So what are your thoughts and feelings then around, and I have mixed feelings about this, fractional COOs, fractional integrators, you know, because if you have an entrepreneur, right, I think. I started a new company in December, came off of a sale in my last 15 years. I knew from my first experience of that company, the one thing I need to do is hire a COO full time.

Somebody came in my ear and said, how in the world can you afford that? And my response was, I don't know. How in the world can't I, cause I know what it's going to cost me. Like I know how crazy I am. So I knew right away, I got to find my ying to the yang. It happened serendipitously, magic happened. And I have my COO, but I talked to a lot of other entrepreneurs that are like, Wes, like, you know, they have all kinds of problems.

We go on a whiteboard, no shortage of problems. And they're like, I can't afford it. And I'm like, you can't afford not to like, how, how do you, how do you help somebody overcome that?

Cameron: Well, have you ever had a babysitter come and take care of your kids?

Wes: [00:19:00] Uh, I'm, I'm, I'm like, if my mom's not watching them. Yeah, I'm, I'm very, the babysitter is a tough thing for me. Like it's, it's a very strict criteria.

Cameron: But you've had your mom come and take care of the kids for a little bit. You would never, you'd never have a babysitter take care of the kids for a year, but you might have a fractional one, take care of them for a weekend. At some point you have to move from fractional to like a full time nanny or from fractional to a full time mom.

So the, the role of a fractional COO should be because, or a CFO or CMO. I'll give an example. If you're a 3 million company and you have a head of finance, It's not a CFO. You're not paying somebody 250, 000 a year to oversee your finance when you're a 3 million company. So you probably have a director of finance or a controller, maybe a VP of finance level, somebody who is not quite strategic.

So you can't afford to have a real CFO, but you almost can't afford not to have a fractional one who can lead your finance team, who can oversee your finance, who can come to you with ideas and [00:20:00] suggestions. The role of fractional should be that they can bring a level of strategic insight. P& L accountability, questions, and ideas to the entrepreneur that the team can't necessarily do.

And they bring in a level of domain expertise that they can probably coach the actual operations team, or they can coach the finance team, or they can coach the marketing team where you necessarily can't. So it's kind of like you can't afford one, but you can't afford not to have one. That's why you would use a fractional.

I think that companies that are making the mistake is when they have a big enough basket of tasks and responsibilities that they know the person is going to be doing 20 or 30 hours a week. Once you get to a fractional to 20 or 30 hours a week, go hire full time because you'll find enough other good things for them to work on.

There's no reason to try to build a whole bunch of extra work if you don't need it either.

Wes: So how important is that? I mean, I talk with a lot of visionary entrepreneurs and they start, you know, sitting in that visionary seat, the COO role is like vacant. They're sort of serving in that [00:21:00] capacity without even knowing it. They want to hire sales. They want to button everything else up before they bring in a COO.

Would your recommendation be? I mean, my, my thought is bringing the COO and kind of sharing that responsibility and let them take on your challenges and help you through it. Like, that's my take for my first company. Like, what are your, what are your thoughts and feedback around that?

Cameron: First off, let's not say that we need to hire a COO. Let's say that we need someone to come in and handle the operational side of the business or the parts of the business that we're not good at. And let's put a title on it later. I think too often, people are trying to put a title. I like the fact that the integrator title is even there because it's kind of nondescript.

Um, It doesn't denote how much to pay someone or exactly what their roles and responsibilities are. It just says, we need someone to kind of integrate all the systems, you know, on our behalf as a, as a visionary. I think that's kind of what you're looking for more as the entrepreneur is someone to come in and work on parts of the business for you.

So the reason that you end up needing a real full time [00:22:00] one is there's enough things that need to be done that you merely don't have enough time to do on a day to day basis. And you're not giving yourself enough time to grow people and to coach people and to develop people, or you're really getting sucked into the day to day minutiae of the business, which is draining you of energy.

Um, that's really why you're going to hire that true second in command. At some point, the second in command title might become the COO if they bring in a level of strategic insight, if they have enough P& L responsibility. If they can manage a budget and manage to cashflow, if they can actually build out teams and develop people and grow people, and if they can work with a level of autonomy that you don't have to be giving them tasks and giving them projects and kind of overseeing them, that probably denotes more of a COO title than a VP of operations or director of operations.

Wes: No, that's, that's really great. Changing gears a little bit. You said you have six books, your sixth book. You got to update that. What, what's been your favorite book that you've put [00:23:00] out there so far?

Cameron: I think it is now actually my sixth book. It's called The Second in Command. And I wrote a book that really didn't exist. And it's how do we actually go out and recruit, hire on board and build an incredible relationship with that second in command, whatever their title is. How do we build that true yin and yang relationship?

I'm very proud of Double Double, which was my first book cause it was hard and I got it out the door and I did it at a time that it really kind of elevated my brand globally. I love the book Vivid Vision because it's exploded globally and it sells tens of thousands of books a month or copies a month.

Um, so I'm really proud of that. The other ones are really good. Like Meeting Suck is good and Free PR is good and the Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs that I coauthored with Hal Elrod is really good. Um, but I'm very proud of, of, uh, the second in command. Cause it's really, really, really good content.

Wes: The background you're in almost looks like a fake zoom background. It looks really amazing. Talk a little bit about, I follow you on social media and, Was at some point, did you just pick up and like, you're, you're traveling. You travel a ton. [00:24:00] Like what, what created that bug in you to kind of pick up and go?

Cameron: There's a couple things. Um, so yeah, my wife and I have been to 54 countries in the last three years. Uh, we sold everything. We're eight days short of three years right now. We sold everything September 1st of 2021, and we packed up, sold our home in Canada, sold our car, sold our furniture, sold our home in Scottsdale, sold our car there, gave stuff away, and we started being nomads.

Uh, we left with a suitcase and a day pack. So we were both carry on only. Did that for 12 months. We recently each out of the second carry on bag and we're just complete nomads. I own two pair of jeans and a pair of beige pants. I can tell you my entire wardrobe. It's ridiculous. I have one golf cert. Um, we just decided that there's a lot of cool stuff out there to see.

My youngest child is now 21. Um, at the time he was 18, was deciding to go away to university and I was in Vancouver and he selected Montreal, Canada, which was, you know, 3000 miles away to go to university. And he and I [00:25:00] were both laughing that if he's in school in Montreal, he's closer to London, England than he is to Vancouver.

So I'm like, I'm just going to go to Europe. And he's like, good, I'll come and visit you. You know, my 21 year old has now been to 35 countries. So we just wanted to globally see the world, experience the world, hang out with amazing people. Um, we're, we're starting to slow it down a little bit. So as you mentioned, my Zoom background right now, this is a real background.

This is Kelowna, British Columbia. It would be kind of the convergence of Canada's Napa Valley and Canada's version of Lake Tahoe, four great ski resorts. And there's a huge entrepreneurial hub here. Dan Martell, who a bunch of people now know on social is here. His office is a block away. We had lunch with him yesterday.

Nick Kuzmich is one of the best. Facebook experts on the world. He's here, Matt Bertulli, uh, Matt Torin. I know a whole group of entrepreneurs that are really, really high skilled, high quality humans. And because we're in such a great small city of 200, 000 people, they're always out wakeboarding and hiking and mountain biking and having great life.

So we decided to plug in here for one month, but then September 6th we're back off [00:26:00] and off to the world. I go to the Endicott house with my COO Alliance for three days, and then we're off to Ibiza for two weeks and, uh, Majorca for two weeks and Dubai for a month. So we're back, back global again.

Wes: Do you, do you travel the U S at all? Is that part of your travel plans?

Cameron: I do. Yeah. I mean, I'll be at, uh, in Boston at MIT's Endicott house with my team. Uh, Oh, actually just prior to that, I'll be at the all in summit in LA for three days. Uh, we were in Austin last year for a couple of weeks. We'll be back in Austin for, I think all of the month of May, we're going to go for a full month and hang out with a bunch of friends in Austin.

My wife still has family in Scottsdale. So in June, we were actually with her family. In Paso Robles, which is in California, wine country, met with her parents. So we swing through, um, but I'm, I'm, we're really trying to spend more time now in Europe and Asia, and we're really trying to plug into the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Europe now.

So we're doing, we did six events in Europe. In 90 days, [00:27:00] between April 1st and June 30th, we did six entrepreneurial events in Europe, which was incredible just to plug into a really interesting ecosystem and an ecosystem that they don't talk about business as much as we do in North America. You know, if you meet, if you meet somebody and, and it's funny even here in Kelowna, if you meet someone here in Kelowna or someone in Europe and if they say, what do you do?

They don't mean what do you do to make money? They literally mean like, What do you do? It's like, I wakeboard and I hike and I fish. And if you don't answer with your hobbies, they kind of look at you and go, no, I didn't mean what you do to make money. So that's been really fun for us. And interesting for us is connecting with these really smart people that are just as obsessed about growing their companies, but they're equally obsessed with having these great lives and cool discussions.

And I don't know, like, you know, you and I have a mutual friend, John Rulon, who passed away sadly two weeks ago. I was at his funeral, um, last week. And when, when I see a really, really close, close, close friend of 17 years passed away [00:28:00] at 44 years old, it just reinforces to me that none of this matters.

Right. Like, why are we doing this? And, um, so there's a little bit of that for my wife and I is having this bucket list life and exploring the world and connecting with what matters. And, uh, but yeah, US is definitely on our travel circuit for sure.

Wes: No, yeah, it's John Rulon. I, I actually, that's how I actually had the first time I heard your name was actually out of, from John Rulon. He's the author. I mean, great, great man, but he wrote the book Giftology, which is a really amazing book. And he had shared a story about you at. EMP, he would come every year, spend time with us.

Like we had him in EO Detroit and bumped into him at all the EO events. And you know, what a great guy. Uh, he had told a really great story about you from my perspective was like, you could probably tell it better than I, but I think it's such a great story, but it was just like the way he delivered it and like all of it on how he got your attention or wherever that was in the relationship was just, it was a pretty amazing story.

Cameron: [00:29:00] I'll, I'll tell the story. So, and, uh, I hope I don't cry when I tell this one. The pastor at his service told the, the story last week. So chapter one of the book Giftology, is about me. Um, in fact, I think my name is, appears for the first time in the book in on the fourth sentence of the book. So this was at the 20th anniversary of EO in Las Vegas.

John saw me at a speaking event, came up and talked to me afterwards, and he said, Hey. Um, you know, I heard you're actually speaking to our chapter in a few months. Would you like to get together for dinner maybe when you come to Cleveland? And I said, sure. And I said, in fact, every speaker is a little bit more introverted than you think, and the best way to get to know a speaker is invite them for dinner the night before the speaking event, because they're probably sitting in their hotel room by themselves.

So John understood that. On the way to Cleveland, I sent John a text message and I said, Hey, my flight's delayed. I'm a little worried that I'm not going to get there in time for dinner. And John said, it's all good. I've got tickets for the Cavs game, the basketball game tonight after dinner for you and I to go to [00:30:00] get here when you get here and, uh, and we can go.

And I said, I'm also kind of a little bit bummed cause I was going to go to Brooks Brothers to buy some clothing. Cause at this point in 2007, the Canadian dollar was worth more than the U S dollar. So I was like, everything's free. I'm going to the U. S. I can go shopping at Brooks Brothers, at that time my favorite store.

I'm buying everything for free, but I can't go because I'm not going to get there in time. John goes, all good. 20 minutes later, he sends me a text message and he said, what's your shirt size? I'm like, Oh man, I do not want a giftology. shirt with John's logo on it. And I'm like, it's extra large. He goes, no, no, your dress shirt size.

I'm like, wow, I really don't want to dress shirt with your logo. But I gave him my dress shirt sizes. He goes all good. So anyway, I finally get to the hotel. I'm like two hours late. And I come running into the bar area where John is sitting with his business partner, Rod at the time. And I said, okay, I'll drop my stuff at the bell desk.

Let's go to dinner. And he goes, no, go up to your bedroom or your hotel room, freshen up, change your shirt, wash your face, come back down and then we'll go. And I'm like, dude, let's go. I'm late. [00:31:00] He goes, no, just go to your room. I'm like, fine. I'll go to my hotel room. So I go up to my hotel room. I open up the door and my entire hotel room is merchandised out with about 7, 000 of Brooks Brothers clothing.

Within the four hours of me flying from, I think it was a connecting flight from Vancouver through Chicago, John went to the Brooks Brothers across the street from my Four Seasons Hotel or Ritz Carlton Hotel in, um, in Cleveland. Went to the general manager of the Brooks Brothers store, bought all of the clothing in my size from the spring lineup, from the new wardrobe that had just come out, like jackets and sweaters and shirts and belts and pants, like 7, 000 in clothes sitting in my hotel room, all laid out as if I was in a store.

And I remember, I remember walking in going, I don't know, man. Maybe I'm gay, because this is really hot. Like, this guy is, this is sexy. This is really cool. So, I look at the clothes, and I'm like, I gotta get down for dinner. So I go down to the bar, and I'm like, dude, that's [00:32:00] ridiculous. It's only the second time I've met you, but that's freaking crazy hot.

Like what's the story? He goes, let's go for dinner. I'll tell you the story. What he'd done was he told the store to put the 7, 000 on his credit card. Had the general manager from the Ritz hotel agree to take back any of the clothing I didn't want any of the clothing I kept, they would charge to my credit card.

So John effectively went shopping with me with my credit card. Cost him no money except a little bit of time, but he owns me. And I then introduced him to the EMP program. I introduced John to the gathering of Titans. I introduced John into multiple stages. I bought tens of thousands of dollars worth of product from him.

Um, we became extraordinarily close friends. He's spoken to our CEO Alliance. Anyway, that, that gifting idea from him in his, the opening chapter of the book giftology is, uh, it's game changing. So yeah, it was, um, that's how we met. It's how we connected. Uh, I urge everyone, if you've not read Giftology, read it, buy copies for all of your clients.

It's a game changer. [00:33:00] Uh, and the, the Giftology group actually will coach companies on how to bring strategic gifting for your customers, your suppliers, your employees inside of your company. It's a, it's an incredible book. He was an incredible human being. Funny story, five days before he, he died, we were on a 45 minute video call, just he and I.

For 17 years, I've tried to get him to swear once. He never swore. He's said it, and he's told me multiple times, usually with his big laugh, he's like, I have never cussed. And five days before he died, it was up to a thousand bucks. I was going to pay him a thousand dollars to give me one F bomb over video, and he wouldn't do it.

He never, to his day that he died, never uttered a swear word, which kind of just speaks to the character of the human being.

Wes: Yeah, very, very sorry for your loss. I know you were very close with him and I know he spoke very highly of you every year. You always came up in EMP and, uh, you know, but you hit on a lot of that, like with your travel and kind of like, so what is that you're kind of living that [00:34:00] dream, right? Like tomorrow's not guaranteed.

It was a big blow to the entrepreneurial community, his family, but does that, is that what motive, like what, what's next now? I mean, is that what motivates you is just. Time or as an entrepreneur, because you've had great success. Like I'm assuming like a lot of entrepreneurs can kind of do whatever they want, like what keeps that motivation and that propelling moving forward?

Cameron: Yeah, my wife and I both wrote a vivid vision, which is a big concept that I'm known for is that four or five page description of what your company looks like, acts like, and feels like in the future. We wrote a four page description of our marriage. So how we're going to show up as individuals, as friends, as lovers, as confidants, what we're going to do for vacations and hobbies and sexuality and use of substances.

We wrote a five page description of every aspect of our life. And one, one key part of that was our bucket list lifestyle. We both wrote about 101 things on a list. We actually share our bucket lists online on my wife's Everwander travel website. [00:35:00] And, um, it's, it's a list of 101 things that we want to do or see or try or achieve.

Around the world. And we're constantly crossing off these bucket list items. Uh, three months ago, I went paragliding with her in the Dolomites. Cause she'd always wanted to go paragliding. I wanted to go paragliding. We happened to be in Northern Italy. I've always wanted to do a cooking course in Northern Italy.

So I've got one lined up for this November. I always wanted to drive a Porsche on the Autobahn. So we went on a six day Porsche tour through Western Europe. So we're constantly crossing off these amazing bucket list items around the world and hanging out with cool friends, going to festivals. I think that's, what's motivating me is just going and exploring and seeing.

And then in conjunction with that, it's doing those with my kids. You know, I'm spending a lot of time with my two boys. seeing them globally. I fly out to see them in four days. I'll spend the week with them in Vancouver. I'll see my other son in Boston. He's going to come down after the MIT event from Montreal to see me in Boston.

I'll see them both in, uh, in December and January, we're going to go to Bali and Thailand together. So I'm trying to explore the world with my children and stay [00:36:00] connected, but also try to inspire them. And then, yeah, just one day at a time and be a good human and hang out with good people.

Wes: No, it's, it's great, Cameron. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing. You share so much value. If there's anybody listening that are you still engaged? Like, are you still looking for speaking? Are, you know, leading people to the COO Alliance? How can people connect with you?

Cameron: Yeah. Yeah. I'm definitely doing still speaking a lot more speaking events over zoom to EO and YPO kind of chapters and groups. I do a lot. I've done that for 12 years. So groups bring me in over zoom to do speaking events. I do a lot more global speaking now. So stuff in Europe and Asia, I'm speaking to 6, 000 people in Dubai in January.

Um, my COO alliance, any company that does at least 2 million or greater in revenue, get whoever is the second in command of the entrepreneur or the integrator to join, because it's really their community. We grow them, scale them. And then I have a course, an online leadership course, which is all the top skills that I've used to grow all the companies that I've built.

It's called invest in your leaders. But if anybody goes to cameronherald. com, it has, you know, all the products and services that I have to [00:37:00] help entrepreneurs make their dreams come true. And all of my books are available on Amazon, Audible, and iTunes. And I also have a podcast called the second command podcast where I interview the COO from some of the world's greatest brands.

We've had about 410 episodes.

Wes: Well, Cameron, thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming on, you know, wealth of knowledge and, uh, Want to let you go so you can enjoy that beautiful background you have there and enjoy what you're doing. It's really amazing.

Cameron: Thanks Wes. I appreciate you.

Wes: Thanks so much.

outro: This has been another episode of Entrepreneur Intel. Thank you for joining us. For show notes or other episodes, please visit us at entrepreneurintel. com. Until next time.